There is no agreement on how many subfamilies of katydids should be recogonized and what they should be called. Until recently most of the North American species of Tettigoniinae were placed in Decticinae, a subfamily that is no longer recognized and whose species are now entirely within the subfamily Tettigoniinae (Otte 1997). Of the 123 species of North American Tettigoniinae, 120 were formerly in Decticinae. The three remaining species had originally been placed in the Decticinae, but Hubbellia marginifera was later moved to Tettigoniinae and two species of Neobarrettia were moved to Listroscelinae (=Listroscelidinae).

To view distribution maps and photographs and hear the songs of North American shield-backed katydids go to the list of species and access the species pages, which are under development.

See Walker 1997a and 1997b (below) for
general treatments of Hubbellia marginifera and Neobarrettia spp.

Cohn TJ. 1965. The arid-land katydids of the North American genus Neobarrettia (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae): their systematics and a reconstruction of their history. Misc Publ Mus Zool Univ Mich no 126. 179 p.

Davis WT. 1915. A new species of Atlanticus from the mountains of Georgia and North Carolina. Bull. Brooklyn Entomol. Soc. 9: 104-106. [Atlanticus monticola]

Hebard M. 1934b. Studies in Orthoptera which occur in North America north of the Mexican Boundary. III. Revisionary data and new North American Decticinae. Trans. Am. Entomol. Soc. 60: 31-54, 2 pl. [2324 KB]

Rentz DC, Lightfoot DC. 1976. Notes on the distribution of Oregon shield-backed katydids with the description of a new species of Idiostatus (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Decticinae). Entomol. News 87: 145-158. [1432 KB]

Shapiro L. 1995. A new katydid for Long Island, NY: first record of Orchelimum silvaticum east of Ohio, with notes on two adventive katydids from Long Island. J. N Y. Entomol. Soc. 103: 114-120. [Metrioptera roeseli] [539 KB]